Okay, after a week off, and two sessions with the backcracker, I'm back in the game. I have made an agreement with a buddy of mine to run every day in July. In August, I'll start adding speed and distance. But for July, I'm going for consistent running. I really want to race august 26, and this seems like a sensible approach.

I survived the mini-monsoon at the beach last night. We were with another family for the fireworks show. Then this HUGE storm rolled in, and we hid under someone's canopy. The wind kicked up, blowing stuff all over the beach. The dads held down the canopy, as the kids were screaming, half excited, half terrified. They will never forget this. You couldn't look to the wind, because your eyes would get nailed with sand. Lightning crashing everywhere. Long story short.... God provided the fireworks last night.

5.5 miles. Hood route. 5:45 am start. I tripped and fell on the sidewalk @ halfway through this morning. I haven't done that in 5 years. I did a great job with the tuck and roll. I have no marks on me. When I went back to inspect the sidewalk, and find out what caused the fall, I got nothing. Apparently the right leg went on strike for a step. He didn't misbehave for the rest of the run.

3.5 miles. Hood Route. 75 deg.-94% hum.-73 d.p. This run was harder than it should have been. At least I stayed upright for the whole thing.

PM: when I got home from work, Johnny said he wanted to go to the track. I really wasn't ready for this, but why not? Gotta change gears at some point. So I did 1600 up, (4) x 100M w/ 300M recovery, water break, (4) x 100M w/ 300M recovery, 1600 down. Johnny ran all the 100s with me. We were @ 16 seconds each. I gave him a two step head start, and then could not catch him. He's got interesting form. I don't think his heels hit the ground.
Going to keep the streak going tomorrow.

7.5 miles. hood route to Legacy Trail and back. 6:15 am start. 77 deg. 100% hum. 77 d.p. This run was rough. I was really struggling on the way out. At halfway, this woman was handing out bottled water and business cards. That bottle really changed my run, and things were a bit better after that. So, thank you real estate lady who's business card turned into oatmeal in my pocket on the way home. It was so wet out there was steam coming up from the grass. It was so wet out my clothes made slap-slap noises against my skin. It was so wet out I squeezed a cup of sweat out of my shoelaces after the run. I could go on, but that's enough for today.

7.5 miles. Hood route to Legacy trail and back. Cloud cover made today's run less miserable than yesterday. Actually the pace was up a bit today. That 10k next month- some of my coworkers know that I'm a bit off on my running game right now. This might make them want to take a shot at me. That thought got me moving a bit faster.

5.5 miles. Hood route. 6 am start. Last 2 in 8:08, 7:08. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but given the 78 degree dew point, I'll take it. In the planning stage, I have every intention of running tempos and intervals. And I have all the respect in the world for guys like Mike, that can burn intervals in the soup. But I open the front door, and get hit with the wet blanket of humidity, I just laugh and think "let's just get the miles today, speedy stuff tomorrow." The point is, there is no "when it feels good, run faster" here. I have to consciously decide to make that happen.

Congratulations to everyone who raced yesterday! And if you raced in a bonnet, then that goes double!

I want to do interval work not on a track. I just can't seem to get there. Since I'm a month from race day, I wanted to start doing speed work. So, yesterday I mapped out a route on mapmyrun, and then measured with a wheel in real life to verify, 1/4 mile, and a 1/4 mile recovery. Now I can run intervals out of my front door. So the plan was this morning to do 1.5 up, (4) x 0.25 mile + recoveries, 1.5 down. I went outside, felt the weather, and said "I'm just going to run 5.5 miles easy." Although I picked up the pace on the last mile, I was still fairly upset with myself for (once again) backing out of speedy stuff. So, I psyched myself up to do just one 1/4 mile run and recovery. The watch said 1:22, which is blazing fast for me. It made me question the measuring wheel.

I should have just done the workout I intended to do before wimping out.

Things went bad. 2 miles. Then emergency bathroom stop. Then 3.5 miles slow. Apparently running while trying not to have an accident takes a lot out of you. So those last 3.5 miles were super slow. I set out to get 12.9. Camelbak. Gu's. Man, my plans were changed!

3.5 miles. Hood route. 6am start. Then emergency bathroom stop. (Dang it!) Then around the block intervals. (4) x 0.25 + 0.25 recoveries. 1:22, 1:24, 1:26, & 1:27. Then 3.5 miles. Hood route. I'd say the new interval set up went well. During the course of the runs, 3 of my neighbors decided to do yard work, which was odd for 7am on a Sunday. Even though there are no spectators on the track, I still liked this better!